Electrical systems with packaged electrical and electronic components are known and are in use. For example, Motor Control Centers (MCC's) are used for power and data distribution in large and industrial operations. In MCC's, a variety of components, such as switchgear, semiconductor power electronic circuits, programmable logic controllers, motor controllers, and so forth, may be housed in large electrical enclosures which may be subdivided into sections or columns, which may be further subdivided into compartments or units. The MCC includes associated bus bars, interconnections and supporting structures for distribution of electrical power to the various compartments.
Some units in MCC's may be “intelligently” controlled by a network connection to another device, such as a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC). To connect such units to a device for intelligent control, it is necessary to run a network cable from the intelligent unit in the MCC to the device. Vertical and horizontal wire-ways, ordinarily used for running line and load wiring to service components of the MCC, may also be used for running such network cables. However, due to the limited space of such wire-ways, and the potentially delicate nature of traditional network connections in systems which typically require fault tolerance, running network cables in such wire-ways may be a challenge. A need therefore exists for a system in which network cables may be routed in an MCC in a fault tolerant, reliable manner.